Picard is one of the worst things I have ever watched, period. It's absolutely staggering how many bad decisions the writers made. It doesn't even work as a standalone unconnected to the IP.
IMO I thought S1 was oookkkkaayyy, I really made a mental effort to like it.
S2 was just awful with no redeeming qualities. It was clearly just "well we blew all our budget in S1 to hook in subscribers so let's just have S2 take place in present-day Los Angeles because that's literally the cheapest way to make it".
What's even worse is that Star Trek IV proves that shooting your sci-fi show in modern California can actually be a pretty fun idea and works really well. Picard isn't made from bad ideas, it is made by ruining good ideas.
Pretty sure their budget ran out before season one ended, looking at the copy-paste fleet at the last episode.
I tried so hard to like it and gave up after 5 episodes. Romulans who don't know what stealth is, a Picard who is spineless and gullible and who gives up after encountering one major obstacle and condemns billions to death with his inaction, yet another instance of shitty sci-fi writers not understanding the whole mind transfer thing...
Honestly everyone who thinks anything about brain transfer stuff needs to play SOMA and see how horrifying it can become
I mean even outside the terrible lore being presented, the show itself is just badly put together, the acting is universally stiff and awkward, NOBODY FUCKIN BLINKS, Stewart can't emote which is just depressing and the other actors apparently had no direction because it feels like every single scene was straight up just lifted from the first or second take....and I shouldn't be clocking any nervous energy from the actors when the scene obviously isn't signaling any nervousness....this is what directors are for
Makes me wonder what kind of shitty work places these sets are
It makes me theorize that patrick stewart is exactly like how he was portrayed in the show Extras https://youtu.be/Fg_cwI1Xj4M
They’ve made Star Wars for like 30 years now. Surely the war is coming close to an end
They've retreated back into the Rebellion Era, because the writers don't have the talent to make a plausible future which isn't just more of the same, and they don't have the courage to make a plausible past which can tell a story before the familiar characters and settings existed.
because the writers don’t have the talent to make a plausible future which isn’t just more of the same
Plus the future we do have is a pretty shit story. Imagine trying to expand from Rise of Skywalker.
Is this a criticism of this Andor show I hear about? I don't bother watching any of these shows because everyone who said to me The Mandalorian was good was wrong. (short crit: set design, music, cinematography, etc were all good. plot? pointless. therefore: show pointless)
Mandalorian was the best thing Disney had made so far, Andor is much better but you'd probably have the same criticism of the plot since we know how it all ends with Rogue One and the original trilogy.
knowing how something ends isn't what makes it pointless, many of the best plays ever made were written knowing the audience knew the ending already. The point is to make the trip there interesting. Twist centric writing doesn't understand that shocking people is not the same as making something good. I enjoyed Rogue One, fully knowing the characters were going to die, because I found them interesting and enjoyed seeing them rise to the challenge and pout their life on the lines for what they cared about.
this is true, and tbf I was guessing why @neo found the plot pointless
I tried to stick with The Mandalorian but I had to bail out on the episode where they infiltrate an Imperial base as stormtroopers. Except Bill Burr isn't wearing a helmet and nobody seems to think that is unusual.
Also gave Obi Wan a shot but I couldn't make it through 2 episodes. Fool me twice, never get fooled again.
Andor is made by a guy who doesn't like Star Wars, if that perhaps might convince you.
Yeah, I watched the first episode this morning and it was pretty good. Looking forward to the rest.
the ending of the conflict can't be portrayed because of the ideological constraints of the writers. The setting involves space liberalism inevitably succumbing to space fascism, because Lucas designed it that way. Writers would only be capable of ending conflict by acknowledging the failures of space liberalism, and The Last Jedi came close, but then it got all fucked up
I haven't watched Andor or Mandalorian or any of that
Star Trek: Discovery is a stupid action movie taking place in a setting which can only SORT OF support it.
...The subscription model replacing the old serialized model also means that all the goofy science fantasy shit is happening to the crew of the Discovery one disaster after another with no downtime. It draws attention to the lack of breathing room when there really isn't a "quiet episode" like TNG or DS9 or even sometimes Voyager would have. Burnham would never attempt to teach an android how to dream or tell jokes, or go to a vacation planet and deal with really rude pranks.
The lack of downtime is a big problem I’ve noticed across a lot of contemporary film and TV, and definitely applies to the new Star Trek stuff.
Another issue with both Picard and Discovery is that the scale of the problem is always as big as it can possibly be, with the protagonists of the show at the center of it at all times. One of the underrated aspects of previous Trek series is that the baseline stakes were much more focused. TOS and TNG were both about the flagship of the fleet, but still just one ship and one crew. DS9 was about a strategically critical starbase at the center of a number of galactic conflicts, but it was still set within those conflicts. Voyager had all sorts of crazy adventures, but the focus was always on the crew trying to get home. There’s room in all of the above for lots of different types of story.
I’m fine with the crew being the main characters of the universe from time to time, but when every episode is about an existential threat to everything, it’s hard to believably scale down the stakes and do something more mundane.
I will say that Lower Decks is doing a good job. There’s a lot of fan service on the surface, but I think it legitimately does a better job being Star Trek than anything made in the last 20 years.
Wild that it was the Family Guy who saved Star Trek, guess he was just a big fan and managed to get a blank slate
Haven't watched Orville because I don't want to support that racist piece of shit McFarlane, but I thought Star Trek Lower Decks is easily better than both Picard and Discovery.
It's worth a shot, the show really does feel like a labor of love. So many beautiful sets and fantastic prosthetic work in that show.
He also repeatedly states that the Union is a Communist/Post-Capitalist organization which is a weird thing to directly hear in a Nu-Trek era show.
The plotlines are usually kinda goofy, but they manage to take the goofy premise and actually take the whole thing seriously in the context of the show's universe which is also a weird thing to see in a show by the Family Guy.
I think part of the issue is that for star trek as well as many other shows, seasons use to be well over 20 episodes, and now they are like half that. Fewer episodes means less room for silly down time episodes.
I cannot imagine how they managed to sneak Andor's themes past the libs in charge. Luthan may as well have a large sign on his head saying "I am Space Lenin, this is how you organise a vanguard from competing groups. There will be a test."
The real problem is that despite everyone else being anarchists and socialists by ANH Mon Mothma has to be the only one left. Liberalism is baked in as winning.
True, but it feels more like they're selling us rope made of string cheese because they know it won't radicalize anyone except liberals to support imperialism
All those Bothans who died had two blaster shots to the back of the head and were found in a burning landspeeder
The Old Lady's death speech that triggers the riot is based on Gramsci. Nemik directly quotes Brecht. Luthan is a composite of Blanqui, Lenin, and surprisingly directly references Zizeck whe he talks of burning his decency.
The imperial talks about managing the native population is taken from British colonial documentation.
I'm not saying the writers are Marxists, but someone's been reading actual theory.
Which is why they tried to re-establish a galactic senate, and why it almost immediately collapses back into fascism again. They keep trying it.
They hate the empire. They love creating the foundation for the empire and then descending into autocracy over and over
Even if they killed every last member of the empire and the first order, the new Liberal government would just collapse into fascism again under its own contradictions. Until they create a federation and use their ample tech to actually reach post-scarcity communism it will keep happening because the galaxy is filled with slaver cartels, mafia rings, siths & corporations that own planets.
The technology and economy of the Star Wars universe makes no sense. They have light speed travel that’s cheap/free, there’s basically no limits on fuel (Last Jedi is not canon IMO, fuel limitations were never mentioned until then), they have droids capable of anything & for some reason they are still just sitting around “moisture farming” on desert planets when there are uninhabited or sparsely populated worlds with temperate climates that are untapped.
Last Jedi is not canon IMO, fuel limitations were never mentioned until then
They absolutely were lol. Pay attention.
well part of that is them working backwards. jj abrams decided there needed to be an empire 2 in his big star wars movie because straying from the original trilogy is the devil, so that meant the leaders must have been massive libs to allow it
He decided that because he, and all the other writers, think Liberalism is the end of history and can’t escape the loop of liberalism->fascism->liberalism
yeah, i'm just saying that wasn't necessarily baked into the original trilogy
:downbear: :picard-annoyed: you betrayed your uniform! :picard-direct-action:
There are literally three other series out right now that are solid Star Trek and have nothing to do with DISCO or Picard.
The rick and morty grotesque vibe from early s1 Lower Decks disappears quickly
3? Lower decks which is awesome. SNW? I haven't seen. What's 3?
Also The Orville, which in three seasons has gone from "affectionate parody" to just being classic-style Trek
I saw the first few episodes but didn’t enjoy it at all. Can I skip to S3?
Star Trek is supposed to be a little bit wacky and heavy handed. That’s what makes it work.
no idea, my only feelings towards new trek shows is snark, but who knows - couldn't possibly be worse than discovery or picard eh
i've been trying to psyche myself into watching lower decks 'cause everyone says it's great, but every clip i've seen of it has that feel of ...arrogance?Hmm. I'd say give the first season a chance and if it's not for you bail, but once I got through the first few episodes I found that it's had a pretty positive trajectory overall.
Prodigy on Nickelodeon! It's geared more towards kids but it's all about the fundamentals of Starfleet with thoughtful consideration of the franchise as a whole.
I watched the ricardo montalban wrath of Khan on Thanksgiving. I'm good for both until next year .
Benedict Cumberbunch
Benedict Cumberbund is only good at being Benedict Cumberbutch. Nothing else.
You take that back, Benadryl Cuminbuns is my favorite actor :angery:
The finale was pretty bad but up until then, easily the best a star war thing has been in many years. Tbh basically everything wrong with it stemmed from being a star war
spoiler
I liked bits and pieces of the finale but whenever characters actually try to explain their ideology with dialogue/speeches as opposed to hard bitten standoffs the more I remember it's just a silly star war. also felt like a lot of major characters showed up to watch the finale go down and not really do much which was odd.
still easily the best star war thing since the originals I think
now let's not be hasty. andor is amazing, but in 6 months there'll be more star wars as bad as anything you've ever seen
